The Lethal Encounter (8 page)

“Hi David.”

“Oh, hi Katie,” replied David
Keenly, one of the tech team leaders. David was a man in his mid forties and
was a seasoned IT professional. Often teased as being a classic “geek”, David
was nonetheless an excellent executive. Katie had worked with him before and
hoped that he would be leading her tech support team on this deal.

Katie and David made small
talk as other people trooped into the room. Sue, Katie's direct boss, sat opposite
and the department head, Julie Cantor, sat at the end of the table. In all
there were eight people present and they were in the process of helping
themselves to coffee and biscuits from the tempting plateful left by Judy when
Julie Cantor, after taking a sip of coffee, opened the meeting.

“Thanks for coming everyone.
I want to put preliminary plans in place for the fulfilment of the deal with
Logistics France and I also want to congratulate the sales team for closing the
deal…..particularly you Katie.” Julie nodded acknowledgment to Katie who smiled
and felt a bit self conscious as all eyes swivelled towards her. “We have short
timelines and so I want to appoint teams as soon as possible. Sue, can you fill
in some details?”

“Sure, Julie thanks,” said
Sue, sitting up straighter in her chair. “We're going to need Katie to give us
a lot of the relevant information, but first I want to put in place
personnel.....”

Just as Sue was speaking, the
door at the end of the room opened and none other than Peter Jarvis walked into
the room. Everyone's head turned in his direction and Sue's voice faltered into
silence.

“Oh please, don't mind me,”
said Peter, totally oblivious to the stir he had caused. “I just wanted to sit
in on this one and who knows, I might even be able to add something.” He sat
down in one of the spare seats and confidently placed his hands on the table in
front of him.

“Oh, fine. Hi Peter. Great to
see you. I think you probably know everyone here. Sue, why don't you continue?”
said Julie. Whilst she obviously knew Peter well, she was not used to him
coming uninvited to her meetings and his arrival clearly shook her.

“Fine. Hi Peter. We're just
about to discuss the plans for fulfilling the France Logistics contract that
Katie completed last week.” As she said this Sue inclined her head towards
Katie and Peter Jarvis turned his head towards her for the first time.

If Katie's mood had been good
to middling at the beginning of this meeting, Peter's arrival had changed all
that. As the door had opened and Katie had turned her head, it was almost as if
the world had gone into slow motion. She had seen his hand grasp the door jamb
and then watched as he had emerged around it. He was wearing a dark brown
jacket, a crisp white shirt open at the collar and a pair of dark blue jeans.
His hair was swept back and his face looked fresh and bright, even though there
were small dark rings under his eyes. His smile was exactly as she remembered
and his twinkling eyes seemed to reach out to everyone in the room.

Despite his entrance, Katie
first reaction was to lower her head to her papers and bring her hand up to her
forehead. Her hair flopped forward and hung half across her face. Her heart had
given an immediate lurch and she felt sweat break out across her brow and over
the rest of her body.  As she heard her name mentioned by Sue, she
realised that the game was up and she stole a quick glance at Peter. She was
not surprised to see him staring at her with an amused and quizzical expression
on his face, one eyebrow raised slightly. There was a pause before he spoke.

“Ah, THE Katie McGovern no
less. Funnily enough, I already seem to know a lot about you. Congratulations
on the deal with Logistics…..they're not an easy company to crack,” he said
slowly. He turned back to Sue and, with what Katie thought to be a sly smile on
his face, nodded at her to continue.

“Yes, thanks Peter. Anyway.
Katie has already discussed implementation timelines with Logistics and we have
a six month window starting today. I've discussed role allocations with Julie
and we want Katie to continue to project manage and David, as your current
assignment finishes at the end of the week, we want you to head up the tech
side. Is that OK with everyone?”

Sue looked up and, not expecting
any challenges to her previous statement, she continued. “Great. OK, so.....”

At that moment Peter Jarvis
looked up from some notes that had been handed round and said.

“Hang on a sec, Sue. What are
the parameters of the deal? How big is it exactly?”

“Well, I think we should let
Katie outline those. She's closest to their requirements. Katie?”

The room fell silent as
everyone turned to look at Katie who had gone into complete meltdown mode. She
stared down at her papers and started mumbling.

“I, well, thanks, Sue, um,
it's difficult to say really. Logistics are looking to, um, well I need to
confirm the final details and …..” Katie fell silent. She knew she was making a
total fool of herself but her mind had gone into a sort of mush. She stole
another glance at Peter and his piercing eyes bore into her with astonishment.
She turned her head towards Sue and saw that her face bore an expression of
surprise.

“Well, I can see you've still
got some prep work to do on this.....Katie,” said Peter. “I haven't got time
for this. Let's re-convene when you've got yourself together. Sue. Julie.”

With that comment, Peter got
up, acknowledged everyone with a quick nod of his head, and walked purposefully
out of the room which was left silent.

Katie drew in a huge breath
and willed herself to be calm. She had cocked up badly and now she knew she
needed to get herself together to salvage both the deal and, probably, her
reputation.

“So what the hell was that
all about?” said Julie, looking accusingly at Sue and Katie in turn. “The boss
comes in for the first time in months and we look like total idiots. Great!”

“Look, I'm really sorry. I've
got all the information here, it’s just that.....” said Katie.

“Just what exactly?” retorted
Julie. “It’s like you've seen a ghost.”

“I'm really sorry about that
Julie,” muttered Sue, back peddling like mad to appease her boss. “I'm sure
Katie knows the info. Let's press on anyway and get some of these things
sorted.”

Katie drew in a big breath,
knotted her hands together and started to speak again.

Later, as she sat at her
desk, she shuddered as she relived the meeting. With a superhuman effort, she
had managed to run through the objectives and, even though she knew her
performance had been woeful, everyone had seemed satisfied and the meeting had
broken up about thirty minutes later.

Katie still felt in shock
when she saw Sue beckoning at her from behind the glass wall in her office.
With a heavy heart, Katie made her way down the corridor between the workstations
and into Sue's office. She sat down on one of the chairs behind the desk and
started talking.

“Look, Sue, I'm sorry about
that, I was just a bit taken aback when Peter Jarvis came in, I kind of had not
been prepared.....”

“You behaved like a love lost
teenager. God, it was so embarrassing. I hope he doesn't start asking
questions, otherwise we could both be in trouble. What's it all about anyway?”

“Nothing, really nothing. I
was just a bit tongue tied.” Katie said earnestly. “Nothing's wrong, really.”

“Well, I don't know if there
is going to be any backlash from this. I'm sure our Mr. Jarvis doesn't like to
get taken for a ride,” retorted Sue, clearly angry with Katie.

“Look, it was a one off thing.
Nothing's the matter and I will handle this project brilliantly. If I don't,
you can sack me…..” As soon as the words were out of Katie's mouth, she
stopped, seeing Sue's eyes half close and her mouth purse.

“Mmmn. That moment might come
quicker than you think if you go on behaving like you did today. Just take my
advice, steer clear of Peter and if he wants to get involved in this deal
personally, I might have to take you off the project.”

“You can't do that.....no
don't worry, everything will be OK.” Katie said, now almost in desperation.

“OK, OK, I'm sure it will be
fine. You'd better go and get on. You've a lot to do…..and prove, now.”

Katie arrived back at her
desk seething to herself. In a matter of a few days her career had almost gone
off the rails.....and all because of a man! Not only that but her pathetic
reaction to one. God, she had to get a grip otherwise it would be curtains.

A strong cup of coffee later,
Katie felt well enough to get up and make the short trip to David's office. As
she approached she distinctly heard her name being mentioned.

“.....and you should have
seen her…..she went all tongue tied and pathetic. It was as if he had kicked
his cat. She must have a crush on him or something.....” laughter followed and,
as Katie entered the room, her face burning, the conversation abruptly stopped.
David and a colleague were standing by his desk with amused smiles on their
faces.

“Well, well, here's the love
struck girl herself. What's this thing between you and Peter Jarvis then?” said
Chris, the other group technical leader.

“Oh, shut up Chris,” replied
Katie angrily. “I was just a bit stuck for words. After all, it’s not everyday
you have to present to the boss. It just took me by surprise. I bet you would
struggle.” Katie stopped, realising she was now blabbering. This situation was
getting worse and worse, she thought to herself fleetingly. She took a deep
breath.

“Anyway, if you two have
finished your rather girly gossip, can we just run through the initial work
schedules?”

“Sure Katie. Keep your hair
on. We're just joking. I mean....Peter Jarvis! He is pretty formidable and I
wouldn't fancy him being in one of my meetings. So calm down, OK?” David
responded.

Katie smiled gratefully.
“Thanks David. Let’s get on then, shall we?”

Later, when she was ensconced
back at her desk, Katie realised that she had to get a grip of the situation
otherwise things could get out of hand. But what should she do? Peter Jarvis'
intervention this morning had hit her both physically and mentally and she
realised that this whole issue between them was still open. She needed to
discuss it with someone and definitely not anybody here at work. She was just
about to ring Josie when her phone rang. Picking up the receiver, she saw it
was Hugo ringing on an internal line. She sighed. She was not in the mood for a
conversation with this particular person and she knew things were coming to a
head with him.

“Hi Hugo, how goes it?” she
said.

“Great, thanks Katie. I was
just wondering if you fancied going out tonight for a drink, or something to
eat. No work talk, I promise,” said Hugo.

Despite her misgivings a few
moments ago, Katie made a split decision and replied.

“That would be nice. I could
do with some distraction from this place…..it’s driving me bonkers at the
moment.”

“I am your official diversion
then. Let’s meet at the wine bar round the corner and go on from there at, say
seven?” Hugo replied.

“Can we meet at that new
Italian on Bridge Street instead? There's less likely to be anyone from here
there, if you know what I mean.....”

“Sure, understood, I'll see
you there.”

With that, Hugo said goodbye
and hung up. Katie put the phone down and smiled. That was good. She needed to
return to some semblance of normality and a nice meal with Hugo would suffice.
She knew she would still have to confront the future of their relationship,
but, in the meantime, he was good company and that is exactly what she needed
at that moment.

The rest of the day was
filled with spreadsheets and timelines as Katie drew out the project on her
customised software. Despite the problems of the day, she felt confident that
she was on the right track with the work, and a good e mail from the French
client at the very last thing, cheered her even more. She headed out of the
office feeling more upbeat than at anytime that day.